“Members of the Dutch government called for alterations in the Green Agenda after the recent victory of the pro-farmer party BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB) in the provincial elections. The BBB, which based its support on fighting damaging environmentalist policies, will now become the biggest party in the provinces as well as the Senate. In the regional governments, the BBB said it will not enforce any anti-farmer laws. The BBB’s rise is the result of policies that threatened to close thousands of farms, as the Dutch government followed EU plans to halve nitrogen emissions by 2030. This provoked an outbreak of farmer’s protests, leading to the BBB’s electoral landslide on March 15th. The BBB will also be the biggest party in the Senate—which is elected by the regional governments—giving it serious sway in the law-making process. The BBB chairman, Erik Stegink, insists that the government’s environmentalist policies must be dropped, especially its plans to buy and close farms, saying that ‘2030 must be off the table and expropriation is also not an option.’”
“Dutch Government Reconsiders Green Agenda Following Farmer Victory,” The European Conservative, Mar. 22, 2023
